After a fishing expedition in Bynoe Harbour last year it was decided amongst a few of the lads we should repeat the efforts, however this time we would base ourselves at the Channel Point campground and have a crack out and around the Peron Islands.

A bit of planning and deliberation confirmed that the dates best suited would be the 22nd-25th of June. The theory being that these neap-spring tides during a new moon were a) the best tides for fishing that area, b) they allowed us to launch and retrieve at ideal times in the morning and afternoon given the limited boat ramp access & c) the opportunity to fish 2 ½ days in these grounds for only a day of annual leave is pretty much a victimless crime.

So the planning phase lasted 6-weeks, which incorporated everything that an important event such as this should e.g. esky quantities and sizes, fishing competition rules, how many rods can you bring (turned out to be too many) and how many pairs of pliers do we have (apparently not enough!). We had to factor in a few vehicle changes, a couple of boat withdrawals and some personnel adjustments; but when the dust had settled it was established that 11 brave souls aboard 3 vessels would be undertaking this mission.

The 67km of dirt road into the campground was sensational, a far cry from some of the images that had only recently been put online by Parks & Wildlife that depicted huge washouts and mud-filled ruts. A big thumbs-up to the civil crew that worked that bit of magic.

There was a small window of opportunity for the first crew that arrived in the afternoon to capitalise on, so they got on the water and within 30-minutes of launching there was a couple of solid jewfish landed. Not many better feelings than getting on the scoreboard early!

The next morning saw the 2nd vessel arrive and the plan was to head wide chasing reefies. On the way to the spots we came across a few bust-ups, so a few slugs went in, and a mack tuna and two longtail tuna came out, which are great jewfish bait, so we welcomed them aboard.

Once we arrived on our spots out and around Sail City it was simply just a matter of continuously moving around until we found the fish. On that note a special mention must go to the anchor winch, it didn’t skip a beat all trip, which meant our strength was reserved for more important things, like lifting tinnies and hauling fish! The reef fishing was excellent, with a healthy mix of coral trout, bluebone, red emperor and tricky snapper all coming in over the side.

From there we pushed in closer to Point Blaze, seeking out some goldy’s to round out the afternoon, however try as we might they just could not be located. On the steam back in we stumbled upon a small baitball that was a hive of activity, it appeared to have reef sharks and mack tunas thrashing around on the surface. What was incredible was that it just stayed put; it would have been bubbling away for an easy 5-minutes. So one of the lads got a slug out there and lo and behold they……….Pulled. A. Goldy. In….??!!

Well before you could say “holy-cr.p-that’s-a-goldy-that-just-smashed-a-slug-on-the-surface-I-cannot-believe-it!” the anchor winch was on the way down and it was followed by 6-lines in quick succession. What ensued was perhaps one of the hottest bites I’d had the privilege to experience, with goldy’s coming in thick and fast, some were even being followed up to the boat by their mates. There was even rock cod’s coming up in plague numbers. Fortunately we were only in 7-metres of water so we established the rule early on that unless your catch had a bit of size we’d throw them back. Once the chaos was over we proceeded to putt back to camp, working our way through a mountain of filleting in the process. The other boat that shadowed us throughout the day had also managed to land some solid reef fish, and the late arrivals that day had managed to pull in 6 good-sized crabs but had unluckily dropped a big jewfish out the front.

The next day saw us head out towards Bateman Shoals with bluebone and coral trout the target species in mind. This probably would have worked, if we could have gotten past the trickies! Despite moving multiple times we couldn’t escape them. Our catch also included a big Chinaman and a ‘weird’ looking sea creature (picture attached), anyone know what it is? We ended up giving up and headed over to the jew ledge to round out the trip.

Well didn’t the jewfish just turn it on?! There is nothing like a bit of fresh tuna and some ‘special’ bait to get them going. We landed 6 between us in the space of 2 hours, and they were all big, thick, healthy specimens; with nothing going under 1.1m and the biggest going 1.31! One of the other boats managed to land a jew and some goldys throughout the day and the 3rd vessel that did the reef fishing found some nice coral trout, so great results all round.

Well that essentially concludes this tale of angling adventure. Personally I’ve done this trip 6-times and the pristine weather and our fishing results puts it at the top of the podium next to the debut trip all those years ago. There were solid contributions across the board from all players and it made for an easy and enjoyable trip, great work lads, already looking forward to planning the next one!

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From Morgan Grant, Fish I D expert:Thanks Jack. It's something I haven't seen before - I think it's one of the more unusual Mantis Shrimps, and by the look of it, one of the "crushers" because it seems to have "clubs" on the forelegs rather than the spearing claws like a praying mantis that the Mantis Shrimp "spearers" have. There are about 120 species in Australia, so to get a close ID, your mate should send the photo to a curator of crustaceans at their state museum. It is very unusual because of the camouflage it's wearing, like a camouflage crab. Thanks for sharing! Cheers, Morgan

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